


A Very Important Reason (the Maltese TARDIS remix)

by leiascully



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 16:17:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/383446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor borrowed something.  Rose wants it back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Very Important Reason (the Maltese TARDIS remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [froxyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/froxyn/gifts).
  * Inspired by [A Very, Very Important Reason](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/7876) by froxyn. 



Rose had spent what felt like quite a while cooling her heels in this town, looking for the Doctor. It wasn't really so long, but even a few days without him felt like an eternity. He was a tough man to find, considering the way trouble seemed to follow him. But she'd run him to ground at last in an office behind a speakeasy with a green door. The carpet was green as well, forest green, and the walls were some shade of sage. It had a certain charm. Not his usual hideaway, certainly. 

She tugged down the brim of her fedora as she walked into the speakeasy. She didn't want to be recognized - the hat and the long coat turned her into any other mysterious stranger in the place. The Doctor was in one of the back rooms, as far as she knew. It didn't take long to get across the room, despite the crowd. It was quite the popular watering hole, strangers jammed in elbow to elbow, smoking and drinking and listening to the jazz that spilled from one corner. Rose walked her non-nonsense walk, her Bad Wolf saunter, and the others got out of her way. In the dark, sordid back hall of the speakeasy, she pushed open the door and paused. It was possible, even after all her work, he wouldn't be there, but she doubted she was wrong. A rattle under the desk and an exasperated mutter proved her instincts hadn't failed her. Just the man she'd been looking for.

"What are you doing with that?" she asked, cool as she could.

He whacked his head on the bottom of the desk, trying to stand up, and it took him a long moment to unfold his lanky frame from where he was crouched. "With what?"

She raised one eyebrow at him and glanced at the figurine he'd set down when he stood up.

"No need to sneak up on me, Rose Tyler," he said, leaning on the desk. "I'd think it would be beneath you by this point. I'll admit it's impressive. From shopgirl to a real dame - quite the transformation. Trying to give me a heart attack?" 

Rose leveled a gaze at him. "You've got two hearts, Doctor. I'm fairly certain a heart attack isn't going to kill you."

"It might," he said. "If both of them attacked in a coordinated fashion." 

She smirked at him. He gazed back at her until they were finally both smiling at each other. She never could resist that face, no matter what shape he was wearing. He looked good, in a sleek suit with his flyaway hair slicked down. It hadn't been more than a few weeks since she'd seen him, in her timeline. Of course, that meant nothing for him. He looked older, but never wiser. He dropped his gaze first.

"Pull up a chair, doll," he said. 

"The tough guy act doesn't work for you," she told him, perching on the sleek leather of his office chair. "Not at all."

He tipped his head. "I'd say likewise, but we both know that isn't true."

She flashed him a fierce little smile. "It used to be, once. How times change. At least I've still got the face of the girl next door."

A guilty look haunted his eyes for a moment. He sat down in his own chair. "What's on your mind, Rose?" 

"I'm looking for something," she said, pulling out a cigarette holder and gesturing with it. She didn't smoke, but it made a nice effect. "Something you know all about. What are you doing with it?"

"What?" he asked, putting on his innocent-lamb expression and looking more like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Rose just stared him down. It wasn't difficult, she'd learned. Gaze at the man long enough and he'd tell you nearly anything. The Time Vortex itself couldn't stop that mouth some days. She raised one eyebrow and he cupped a hand protectively around the little figurine.

"This old thing?" he scoffed. "I only borrowed it."

"Borrowed it," she said. "Correct me if I'm wrong, mister, but doesn't that imply you had to ask first? And that you intend to give it back? Otherwise, we call that stealing."

The Doctor's brow furrowed - there was the Oncoming Storm, for a moment, and then he only looked surprised. "Stealing? I told you, Rose. I borrowed it." He leaned forward. "Who said I didn't ask first?"

Rose laughed, letting the sound ring out in the quiet of the room. "Are you telling me you did? You, of all people? Mister I-only-borrowed-the-TARDIS?"

"You got that right," he murmured. "I am. Because I did ask to borrow this." 

She reached out for the figurine and he leaned forward and covered her hand with his, not forceful or intimidating, but still strong. "Believe me, I did."

They both stared at their hands for a moment. His fingers twitched over hers in a half-caress. 

"You didn't ask me," Rose told him, clearing her throat. "And that's mine. So who'd you ask?"

The Doctor was silent for several long breaths. Rose was acutely aware of the pressure of his hand on hers. Quite the tableau they were, sitting here reaching toward each other, his other hand still loosely clasped around the figurine. 

"Your own mother," he said at last. "Who else?" 

"My mother would never let you borrow that," she said, trying to slide her fingers out from under his. He tightened his grip on her hand. "She knows how important it is to me." 

"Yes," he agreed. "She does."

Rose glanced again at the figurine, sitting by itself now - his other hand was closed in a fist around something. The Doctor tapped his fingertips against the back of her wrist to get her attention.

"That's why I had to give her a _very_ good reason for letting me borrow it," he said, his voice low and intense. "She threatened to...well, no need to go into all of that. Water under the bridge."

Rose smirked. She could imagine the things her mother might have said. Jackie had always been a little suspicious of The Doctor, and she'd never been subtle.

"I'm sure she gave you plenty to think about," she said. "Now tell me your _very_ good reason." She mocked his own inflection back at him, squeezing his fingers one last time and withdrawing her hand. 

He rubbed his chin and smoothed the lapel of his suit with the hand she'd let go of. "I needed it." 

"What for?" Rose demanded.

He held her gaze. "To use as a guide."

"For _what_?" she asked, looking again at the precious figurine, but it was too far away for her to take without him snatching it away again.

His eyes slipped a little at the strength in her voice, and his confident grin wavered into nervousness. She didn't often see him nervous. He swallowed hard and looked her in the eye again, and after a moment, he opened his hand to reveal a replica of her figurine. She reached out for it and he handed it to her, pushing the original across the desk so she could compare them. The new figurine was a perfect replica of Felix the Cat, right down to his bag of tricks, all in some sort of pink material she couldn't identify. It had the texture of stone with a glassy finish, the surface richly flecked in the dim smoky light of his room.

"It's beautiful," she said. 

"You remember the sculptable sand from the beaches of Cailoxiphia?" he asked. "Turns out it holds its shape just fine."

"You made this?" she asked.

He shrugged. 

"That doesn't seem like a very important reason," she said. "Not important enough for all this sneaking around. The original is only valuable to me."

"Oh, you humans," he said in a tone of fond exasperation. "You think you're so big and you think you're _so_ small. I went back to Cailoxiphia because I knew you love pink. I thought I'd have a quiet little hop over, see what I could see, bring you back a bauble. I didn't have any inspiration at first. But while I was there, I ran across one of those little temples, so I went in, as you do."

"As _you_ do," she pointed out. "Most of us don't take so easily to interfering."

"Whatever you say," he said with one eyebrow raised. "You took to it like a duck to water. There was a gem there in the temple, in a case that can only be unlocked by inserting a key of just the right weight and shape, and on that gem are inscribed secrets that have been lost for eons. Millennia, even. Lo and behold, the sonic told me the precise dimensions of the necessary key. It was your Felix the Cat figurine, which I'd seen on your dresser in your room, and which was, come to think of it, the best choice in the first place. Your room at your mother's place, of course, not your room in the TARDIS. Naturally, I couldn't take it without returning it. Naturally, I couldn't risk it breaking or worse. So I borrowed it and copied it, and now here we are."

"What's so important about this gem?" Rose asked.

"Nothing," the Doctor said. "Unless you care about lost worlds and peace in our time and ending tyranny, oh, just about everywhere. Not to mention the end of a bitter and brutal fight between the two parties who each say the other is responsible for the loss of the gem."

"That old song," Rose said dismissively, smiling at him. 

"Your Felix figurine might just save the world, Rose Tyler," he said with a sparkle in his eye. "A world, anyway. Forgive me?"

"Just this once," she said, setting the two figurines side by side. She stood up and offered him her hand. He pulled her closer and she leaned against him. He carefully took off her fedora and pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head. 

"It's a hell of a souvenir," she said, picking up the pink Felix. "I hope all your gifts aren't so dramatic."

"I hope so too," he said.

"Well then, Doctor," she drawled, slipping the replica into the pocket of her coat, "what are we waiting for?" 

He opened the door at the back of the room and there was the TARDIS. Rose clasped her hand more tightly in his and they walked into the next adventure.


End file.
